


Endless Time

by I_Write_Midnight_Snacks (Pink_and_Purple_Daisies)



Series: Blackout (Bad Things Happen Bingo) [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Blood and Injury, Enemy to Caretaker, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I always forget one, Implied/Referenced Character Death, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Jason Todd Has Issues, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Knife Wounds, Non-Consensual Bondage, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Resurrected Jason Todd, Suicidal Thoughts, Teen Titans Issue 29, Tim Drake Has a Bad Time, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, Tim Drake is Robin, Time Loop, Torture, Violence, Waterboarding, Whump, hoo boy, let me know if there's anything else I should tag, no beta we die like jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29790951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pink_and_Purple_Daisies/pseuds/I_Write_Midnight_Snacks
Summary: Jason Todd leaves the Titans' Tower buzzing with delight over his successful revenge.He wakes up again on the morning of the same day.Bingo Square: Time Loop
Relationships: Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: Blackout (Bad Things Happen Bingo) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2189751
Comments: 54
Kudos: 368
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Red Hood vs Red Robin





	Endless Time

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a lying liar who lies and I'm literally never making writing promises ever again. I swear I was gonna do the 5+1, but then my bingo card came in, and I just. Had to write this one, ok?
> 
> This is the meanest version of Jason I've ever written, and it was damn fun, but be warned, he is Not Nice for the first half + some of this. Beware the tags, guys.
> 
> Also, I'm probably coming back and working through the entire ending bit, since I super rushed it just so I'd be able to get it out tonight. Hope it gets the point across, for the moment, and I can flesh it out a bit more once I've had some sleep. Until then, Enjoy!

Jason leaves the Titan’s Tower behind with a feeling of vicious satisfaction in his veins. His name paints the walls in the Replacement’s blood - if Jason’s blood alone hadn’t been enough for them to retire the suit, maybe this will drive the message home.

He wants to make his return to Gotham explosive - a celebration of his fulfilled revenge and a warning to everyone in his path. He wants to make it loud and clear, to announce his glee and his fury both.

He does neither.

Jason might be good, but he’s also smart enough to know that the entire caped community will be on his ass, now, provided they care more about his replacement than they did about him. Faced with all of them at once, even he has no chance. No. Right now is the time for laying low and planning his next step.

He still thrums with the elation of beating down his Replacement - it buzzes under his skin, frantic and giddy, and Jason can barely contain it on his way back, but he tells it to wait - to let it simmer, let it sit like any good recipe, so by the time he goes back for more, it’s going to be even more delicious.

Something inside him burns with delight.

***

He wakes up in the wrong bed.

He wakes up in the wrong room, the wrong _city_ , and that’s not even the first sign that he’s in for a shitstorm.

All the anger from yesterday burns bright and feral in his veins, with none of the glee left over. His hands ache to break something. The replacement’s face would be ideal, but the punching bag in his safehouse would make for a decent substitute.

Neither of those are an option, considering that he somehow ended up back in the motel he slept in one night before.

If one of the capes found him, then this is a horrible way to detain him. He isn’t even tied down.

What’s more, all his gear is right there, where it’d been the day before.

Who in the fuck would track him down all the way to Gotham, only to… what? Re-enact the previous morning?

Heh.

 _If only_ , he grins at the idea. Re-enacting yesterday actually sounds delightful, only as soon as he finds out which chucklefuck tried to pull the world’s dumbest revenge plan on Jason of all people, and makes sure to disillusion them of the idea.

So he takes stock of the room. His gear is all there. All in the exact places it was yesterday.

Worse, he woke up in full armor. Either he was drugged, or some serious magic was involved. Neither bodes well.

The world outside looks normal. Jason isn’t sure he wants to open the door and make sure.

“If this is some magical bullshit scheme, I’m going to-”

He’s cut off. On the bed, his phone buzzes with an alarm he only ever set once.

“The fuck?”

Yesterday, he slept until the last second, tired from a restless night of anticipation, and woke up with the one-day 8AM alarm. This night, he slept easily, a satisfying ache paving his way into dreamland.

Today, the alarm rings again.

***

The replacement is fine and dandy, and Jason’s anger swells with an intensity that threatens to burn him from the inside out. Waking up in his coffin was a bad joke from the universe, but this is just rubbing salt in the autopsy wound. He finally gets his painstaking revenge, for a second there, something goes right, and it doesn’t stick.

A single mistake, and Jason was dead - his life cut short just like that, and yet whatever he does to the replacement doesn’t seem to matter, because he’s alright again.

Well.

Jason has looked the universe in the face and flipped it the middle finger before.

What’s another try?

***

The third morning, he’s less surprised than he’d like. After waking up in his own coffin, he’s not liable to be taken aback by much, whatever absurd magical fuckery it might be.

The part of him that’s been trained by the bat urges him to test the boundaries of the situation. Change the variables and figure out his options. It tells him to go far away, leave the city and see what happens then.

The part of him that rages against the world screams in indignation. If he leaves now, and this day sticks, his revenge will remain unfulfilled.

Jason can take his time. In the meantime, he can enjoy beating up the replacement - again and again.

***

Robin’s cries lull him to sleep on the fourth evening like a lullaby. They sounded different today, sweeter than the previous times. Jason wasn’t in the mood to hold back. Maybe he should try something else tomorrow, see how prettily the bird can _really_ sing.

***

He spends the fifth morning contemplating his choices. His initial plan was about making a statement - about the thrill of the chase and maximizing the shock value, about proving himself and making his point loud and clear.

This time, he can take his time and really enjoy it. That satisfied buzz swells again when he looks through his equipment, considering each option carefully, before his eyes set inevitably on the knives.

Basic, perhaps, but Jason always did enjoy the classics.

***

This time, when he puts all the others to sleep, he spares just a bit of the drug for the replacement. He already knows how the chase would end, after all. No need for another repeat.

When he’s done tying up the replacement, he takes a moment to survey his work and to really look at the kid. Timothy Drake, the perfect little rich kid who was born with everything Jason wasn’t - money and manners and that blue blood socialites care about so much - and who didn’t carry all those nasty habits that made Jason so unpalatable for the rest of the hero community.

He’s wiry and short, with lean muscles, yeah, from his recent training. Nothing remarkable about him if you subtract B’s training, though. Nothing special enough to set him aside. Nothing besides the fact that he wasn’t a dirty little street rat, like his successor.

Now, he stands tied up in the middle of the hall of heroes. Their monuments surround them, frozen in time but there to bear witness to this, and see that when he screams - when he screams, Timothy is no different from Jason.

When he’s finally looked enough, Jason picks up the bucket of water he set aside. “Wakey, wakey,” he says happily, and splashes the full contents over the kid.

He jerks awake with a gasp.

“Uh-uh, I wouldn’t move so much if I were you, replacement,” he warns, reveling in the frantic movement of the replacement’s eyes. “Pull too much, and you might dislocate something,” he explains before the kid can really get his wits about him. With a careless motion, he gestures to where the kid’s arms are, bound together behind his back and suspended with another chain. “I was nice enough to let your feet touch the ground, even. I wouldn’t want you to jerk your arms out too early, after all,” he grins.

He’d contemplated whether or not to wear the helmet from the start and reveal himself later. The dramatic reveal had its own type of appeal, after all, but he’s glad he went with this instead, because the replacement’s shudder at his expression is something Jason will savor for a while.

“Who are you?” the kid asks when he finally gathers himself enough. The bravado is almost charming, especially with his voice cracking underneath it. “What - what have you done to my team?”

“Oh, I’d worry more about yourself, replacement. They’re sleeping, safe and sound.”

He steps closer to inspect the chain - nice and tight, just long enough to hold the kid in place. No give if he starts to jerk away. Perfect.

“What do you want then?” The replacement snarls, and Jason tamps down the flare of his temper. He’ll stomp out that attitude soon enough.

“Telling you would just give away the game. Don’t worry, replacement. You’ll understand soon enough.”

He doesn’t use his league dagger. It’s the best knife he owns, the blade wickedly sharp and stronger than any alloy he can find on the market, but it would also mark this as being league business, and Jason doesn’t need that to taint his revenge. This is purely personal.

He caresses the kid’s face with gentle fingers, delighted at the bare trace of baby fat that still lingers on his not quite grown traits, cups his cheek softly to turn his face up without moving him further.

Confusion lines the creases between his eyes. “You’ll get wrinkles, frowning like that,” Jason warns. His free hand wanders up, touch only just ghosting over one of the creases, until it eases away - the kid relaxing.

When he rips off the domino mask with a jerk of his hand, Timothy barely muffles a scream.

Jason tuts mockingly. “If you’re already screaming from that, replacement, I’m not sure how you’ll hold up by the end.” He uses the hand still cupping the kid’s cheek to caress mockingly at the raw skin. It distracts the kid from the other hand pulling out a knife. “The other one held out much longer before he screamed, you know. I thought you were supposed to be the better model, though, so let’s test that out.”

The replacement’s clothes part easily to Jason’s knife, which pierces through skin with a satisfying give. The most bitter, most vengeful parts of Jason’s mind bask in the screams, and whisper an enticing idea at Jason.

The first cut takes the form of a “Y” shape covering the replacement’s chest and torso.

The sweetest screams come half an hour in- when Replacement tries to jerk away from the knife, and pulls both shoulders out of their sockets at once.

***

“Why… why do you call me… that?” Replacement asks him between panting breaths on day seven. Jason chose knives again, but this time, he went in with the helmet’s menacing blankness instead.

He tilts his head, mock-thoughtful. “You’re Robin number three, no? The replacement model.”

There’s the indignation he was hoping for - it flares up in the kid’s face like a little bird puffing up its feathers, and he can’t move, but if he could, it’s clear he’s been trying to swing.

“I’m not - we’re not toy models!” he shrieks. It would sound more menacing if his voice wasn’t cracking - if his throat weren’t raw from screaming.

“You sound so sure about that, Replacement,” Jason tuts, but it’s as good a moment as any. He reaches for his helmet with easy movements, and sees surprise register on Replacement’s face when he does. “I was pretty convinced, too, you know,” he says, as the helmet comes down. “You should be thanking me, really. Birds with clipped wings can’t fly, and flightless robins might just survive.”

Not that the kid would want to be alive by the time Jason’s done with him.

***

Knives are getting boring, so he brings a bar of metal on day eight. The scream sounds downright painful when he uses it to cauterize the first wound, but really, Replacement should thank him. Blood loss isn’t conducive to staying conscious, after all.

“Please - please stop, Jason, please,” the kid cries, when he goes for the next wound. “Please don’t, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll - I’ll stop! You - you can have Robin, Jason please-”

“But replacement, if I stop now, you’re gonna bleed out. What kind of successor would I be if I leave you to bleed out here?”

“Jason, please, no-” he cuts off with a scream, but Jason’s nice enough to give him a break after he’s done cauterizing.

He even wipes the tears and waits it out when the kid is crying. The joker was never that nice with Jason.

***

He tries adding electrocution in the mix at one point, but when his muscles seize like that, the kid seems to forget how to use his voice. It isn’t particularly satisfying, so Jason retires that specific torture.

“There’s more than one way to skin a cat,” he growls, when the burning in his veins fails to subside. _And more than one way to ground a bird._

In the Titans’ supply closet, he finds the perfect thing. The grin that takes over his features feels unhinged as he holds up the bleach container. “Perfect.”

The cleaning rag he dips inside is dirty, but the bleach will make it clean.

Going back to the hall of heroes, though, he stalls. Replacement is chained down on his knees this time, and Jason crouches in front of him, meeting the tired, glaring gaze head on. Even rimmed red and bloodshot from crying, the blue of those eyes shines like beautiful, icy crystals, and the rage swells bitter and green inside Jason.

“B always did like his kids to fit a profile, I guess.” his voice comes out even, but to his delight, Replacement flinches away at it. “You have pretty eyes, Replacement.”

Jason’s haven’t been blue in a long time. His fingers clench around the bleach container a second before Replacement’s eyes fall onto it.

Jason grins.

“Let’s see how well you do without them.”

The kid stubbornly clenches his eyes shut, but Jason knows how to work him. He found that the replacement reacts so well to any positive touch. He’ll melt in Jason’s hands for a gentle caress, it’s little effort to give the kid what he wants. A stroke over his hair, a kind hand cupping his cheek, and when Jason pushes his eyelid up with a thumb, Replacement barely even fights him.

Rubbing the rag, then, is like salt over his wounds.

Bleach must burn worse than the hot iron, he thinks, listening to the kid’s voice crack on his scream.

Replacement doesn’t stop crying after that, so Jason cuts his fun off short. At this point, it would feel like kicking a puppy.

***

It’s while he’s washing his hands on the tenth morning that an idea strikes him.

It’s not as bloody as what he’s been trying so far, but Jason is creative enough to make it work.

***

Replacement wakes up with his feet tied in the air that day. The water bucket to the face also goes over a towel this time. Oops.

“It’s not nice to take a dead kid’s things, you know,” he tells Replacement, since he won’t be in a place to ask questions this time around.

He gives it a minute before pulling back the towel - only enough for Replacement to see his face and take a shallow breath before he drops the towel right back. He can picture the suffocation vividly as he drenches it once more.

The kid is trembling and gasping, not even able to question Jason a short while later. The satisfied buzz is dying down, though.

Considering his options, Jason eyes the taser again. Electricity and water mix well.

***

He’s flailing - _flailing_ \- can’t breathe, there’s no air, _can’t fucking breathe _, only gasp and gasp and only water comes - it burns at his nostrils and claws at his skull from the inside and there’s no air, no matter how he flails and thrashes - only green green green, he breathes in water and suffocates again, shoots up and up and _up_ -__

__-and wakes up with heaving gasp and a pounding headache._ _

__Drowning is another trigger. Good to know._ _

__He jots that one down for posterity._ _

____

***

His body is still shaking when he wakes up to his alarm. No more water torture. Something to keep in mind.

He wants to be upset at losing that avenue of pain, but…

It doesn’t feel the same anymore, and Jason needs to get a grip. Without the anger, the rage that drives him to seek his revenge and see his plans fulfilled, there’s - nothing.

Only the hurt underneath, only the scared little kid screaming for a father that never cared, and Jason can’t be that kid again. Jason _needs_ the anger to keep him floating.

So, maybe waterboarding was too silent. Alright. Jason can get more personal.

***

This time around, he gets Replacement in his room. It’s dirty and cluttered, full of clothes and papers and empty takeout plates. It’s nothing like the meticulous files and notes Jason found on the kid’s hard drive, and he almost starts cleaning the place, before he catches himself and remembers why he’s here.

The kid is asleep against the headboard, the laptop still open in his lap from where he tried to work through the sleeping drug. Honestly, he and Bruce deserve each other. Jason’s isn’t sure which is the worse workaholic.

Now, how to play this.

Tying him up is getting old, so maybe he can let the kid free. Give him a fighting chance - there’s something he’ll have to come back to later; he hasn’t chased the kid down in several loops. The door is locked, but the illusion of hope can work wonders on the psyche, he would know.

He moves the laptop out of the way, careful with its handling - even all these years later, the waste of breaking something that expensive settles like a sick feeling in his gut - and makes sure to clear the space of any weapons. There’s a plastic fork forgotten on the bed rest, which Jason decides to leave there.

Then, he takes off the helmet - this will go better without it - and crouches down next to the bed. “Replacement,” he says, softly, as he moves to caress the kid’s cheek with one gloved hand. “Wake up, replacement.”

The kid stirs.

“Oh, kid. Is that all that B’s training was good for? You should really have better instincts by now,” he chastises softly. Inside, he is seething. How was this kid better than Jason, who tried so hard, practiced so much, fought to burn every lesson that Bruce ever taught him into his very being just so he’d be good enough?

“Wha… who?” the kid mumbles. Jason is about to go from caressing to tapping, but just then, the kid finally wakes. He jumps away from Jason’s outstretched hand, hitting the wall with his back as wide, mask-less eyes roam frantically. Oh, yes. It’s that wide-eyed panic that Jason missed, with the towel.

“Hmm. I’m disappointed,” he declares. “I thought my replacement would be better. Newer, shinier model, right? It took you at least a minute to register the threat, Replacement.” Jason keeps his tone soft, of course. It’s a delicate game, here, after all.

“What - how did you get in here?” the kid asks, eyeing the distance to the door.

“Surprisingly easy. Nobody bothered to cancel a dead kid’s access codes, you know.”

It’s dark, so Jason doesn’t begrudge Replacement the seconds it takes to study his face and figure it out.

“Who - Jason?”

“The one and only.”

He’s only slightly surprised when the kid responds with anger. That familiar scowl takes over his face, oh Jason will have fun getting rid of that.

“Who are you?” the kid snarls, still tucked against the wall. In a large tshirt and huddled in blankets, the kid is as intimidating as a baby bird. _Huh_. “Why are you wearing a dead kid’s face?”

Jason tilts his head. Outrage on Jason’s behalf. That’s new. He shifts to sit on the edge of the bed, and leans in to study him closer. As a bonus, the proximity makes the kid more frantic. He’s clearly clocking that all his weapons are gone, before his eyes catch on something on the bedrest. Jason lets his grin widen.

“I’m the kid whose death shroud you’re wearing, replacement, and I’ve come to collect.”

He gets all the way on the bed. The kid is cornered now, but blind panic is too easy. If Jason gives him an out, lets an open path for him, it’s gonna be all the more devastating.

Replacement lunges for the fork.

Jason lets him. He even turns around, giving the kid space to brandish his new weapon in Jason’s face.

“What do you want? What happened to my team?” the kid snarls.

“Your team is fucking fine, kid. Seriously, worry about yourself for once.” That’s confusion replacing the anger, which is fair enough, Jason supposes, for someone who thinks they only asked that question once. “Are you going to use that fork now, or later?”

He curls one corner of his lips cruelly. The kid falters, clearly aware of the futility, but he’s a Robin. They’re not known for giving up when they should.

Jason will work that problem out of him soon.

Tim strikes out, and it’s all he needs - the fork aims for Jason’s eye, but Jason is faster, more prepared. He catches Replacement’s wrist before he gets anywhere close, squeezes and twists until the kid is turned around and he hears a _pop_ and a gasp.

Jason isn’t unreasonable, so he gives the kid a few seconds to breathe through the pain. “Let’s try that again, shall we? I’m gonna let go of your wrist, and you’re going to sit up, nice and slow. Yes?”

Replacement growls, but Jason has all the time in the world. He twists some more, and doesn’t wait out the whimpers this time. “Disobedient Robins get dead, Replacement, so try again. Are you gonna play nice?”

“Fine, yes,” the kid spits.

“There. It wasn’t so hard.”

It’s worth something, that the kid’s breathing is as even as it is when Jason lets go. The joint is popped clean out, and it must hurt like a bitch. Jason can give points where they’re due, the kid settles himself into a sitting position without much fuss.

That means Jason will have to push.

Probably literally, he considers, reaching for the dislocated joint, and _pushes_.

He brings one arm against the kid, though, to hold him close, cradles him against his chest as Replacement chokes on his scream. “Shhh, shh,” he soothes, “It’s ok. Just breathe through it.”

He finds the kid’s hair to be a tangled mess, when he goes to pet it, and may pull out a few strands in his attempt. “There you go,” he goes on, softly, and lets his hand fall from the matted locks to the kid’s good shoulder.

“Please - Jason, please stop,” the kid tries, in-between pained gasps.

Jason is far from done.

He hugs the kid closer, gentle and careful not to jostle him. “Shh, it’s ok,” he says, one hand bracing on the kid’s good shoulder, and _pushes_. The joint pops.

A Robin’s song is a pretty thing, and this one escapes before the kid can choke it back. “It’s ok, you’re alright,” Jason says. “I’m just helping.”

You can’t grapple with busted shoulders, after all. “A grounded Robin is a living Robin,” he says. “We just need to clip those wings, Replacement.”

Muffled sobs against the weave of his suit are music to Jason’s ears. “Please - what - what do you w-w-want? Please I’ll - I’ll do it, p-please, Jason just - just _stop_ -” Replacement cries.

Jason wants to burn everything to the ground. He _Wants_ to go back home, back to before everything changed, before betrayal set in and everything turned to ash in his fingers. He wants back to when he could still feel safe and cared for, and the manor didn’t stand for everything that he can never have again.

He wants not to have died.

He wants his death to _mean something_ other than an empty suit to fill and a soulless memorial.

Jason wants better for the kid who died.

He’ll settle for getting another kid out of the suit.

“Oh, I’ll make sure to get just that, Replacement, don’t worry. Now sit tight,” he says, running his fingers through the kid’s hair again. He ignores the way they catch onto knots, and rubs softly at his scalp. “That’s not quite enough, is it? Robins are stubborn little shits, and we need to really stomp that out of you.”

He uses the arm holding the kid to rub soft circles into the skin at his hip, where the shirt is riding up.

Nothing he does here really sticks, so he could go as far as he wants to. He’s not sure how far that is yet, though.

Sionis’s whole thing is repulsive, so he’ll be staying away from that, and he isn’t touching anything with needles. Replacement tries to grab at his hand, though whatever he’s trying to do with his shoulders out of whack, Jason can only guess, but.

But it does get him thinking. So he lets go, and holds the kid’s hand once he can get a good grip.

“Hm,” he hums. He has some tweezers, among all his gear, somewhere. Good for digging out bullets, after all, but maybe...

He rubs soft circles on the back of Replacement’s hand, nice and soothing as he searched his pouches for - ah, there it is. “That’s a good Replacement,” he tells the heaving kid, as with one hand, he entwines their fingers to hold him in place.

Well groomed, trimmed nails, like you’d expect for a rich heir who never had to work until recently. Easy enough to hook one with his tweezers. “Sitting so nice and obedient for me.”

When he pulls, there’s no hesitation.

There’s a single beat of silence.

When Replacement tries to jerk away, Jason is prepared though. His arms are unyielding, and Replacement is shaking with pain already. The kid isn’t going anywhere.

“Shh,” he says anyway, hugging the kid close. “We aren’t done yet.”

“No-no p-p-please - Jason please no, please stop -”

“Shh, no begging, Replacement. I never begged, to the bitter end, you know.” He aligns the tweezers with the next nail, and the kid has no arm strength to try and pull back.

“P-Please Jason, don’t-”

Jason pulls. He drops the nail on the ground next to the bed, and tuts. “You’re bleeding on the nice sheets now, Replacement,” he chastises, but the kid is busy crying. Shame. He gets the third nail without protest.

The other hand tries ineffectually to scratch at Jason’s jacket, so he switches his attention over, makes sure that he’s careful and even - pointer, middle, ring finger, both sides the same.

It’s when the kid tries to look for the fork again, in between sobbing pleads, that Jason thinks it’s about time. A good switch-and-bait can do wonders.

So he lets go.

Replacement stumbles out of his hold without a backwards look, scrambling towards the door on legs that threaten to give out. Jason watches with a smile.

He considers going after the kid, but…

He sits back on the bed, instead. “Tell you what, Replacement. If you manage to get out, I’ll let you go,” he offers.

The kid’s shoulders hunch. Good. He’s not entirely hopeless.

“Cross my heart - I’ll walk away and leave you be. Even admit you’re the better one. I didn’t manage to get out, after all.”

Replacement won’t, either, but it’ll be fun to see him try.

The kid seems to realize as much. The door is locked - key and keypad both. The moment he tries to touch either with those bleeding fingers, he’ll turn into a blubbering mess.

“What’ll it be, baby bird?” he asks, vicious.

With another deep breath, Replacement goes to unlock the keypad.

His knees crumple under him before he can touch the second key, and Jason sits back, laughing. When he drags the kid back to bed, he’s still sobbing.

***

He wakes up on the next loop with rage burning once more in his veins and nightmares still playing behind his eyelids - Scrambling at a door, bloody fingers that hurt _hurt hurt_ , scratching at wood - pulling at a doorknob - he’s so close, his freedom is right there, just open the door but _it’s locked and it hurts_ \- .

Why is it that the replacement gets so many chances from fate? What makes _Timothy_ worth all this, when Jason never even got one?

It’s not fair. The world’s never been fair, that’s true, and Jason always knew as much, but it’s a new type of hurt, to know just how much the universe favors some. How much it doesn’t favor Jason.

He wants to hurt the kid - more than he has in many loops, Jason aches to make it stick. He aches for a chase.

The plan goes off as well as it did on the first try. Better, even.

He follows the kid all the way to the stairs before making his move. Replacement never had a chance - Jason pushes him down before he can even notice a thing, and he’s _falling_. Something cracks with a sickening crunch before Replacement can even manage a scream - a leg, Jason hopes, to make the chase more fun.

He can’t have planned it batter, when the Kid tries to stand on a leg that gives out. A bullet to the kneecap just to be sure could work, but only at the right moment - later.

He takes the step at a loose pace, watching the Replacement push himself up on his staff, his footsteps deliberately loud on the floor.

He isn’t in the mood to hold back this time around, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have some fun. “Replacement,” he grins under the helmet, taking in the kid’s now familiar frantic expression.

***

Jason hasn’t felt this frenzied since the second time he beat down the kid, and he doesn’t stop until Replacement is crawling away from him on broken bones and bloody fingers, and then still, until the kid stops moving entirely, and the frantic, overwhelming rage finally settles to something burning but manageable.

He leaves the tower before anyone can find him, but rushes to the bathroom the moment he’s back at the motel. It feels like his stomach itself itself is throwing itself up, not just its contents, choking and burning on the way up his throat, and there’s tears pricking his eyes and sobs lodged in his throat when he finally comes up for air.

***

The next morning, he wants to shoot the fucking alarm. He only has the one phone, though, so he settles for turning it off and going back to sleep. He wakes up a few hours after noon, and looks up “Pride and Prejudice” on his phone. He hasn’t read much since coming back - barely anything at all. If this day doesn’t count, though, he might as well waste this time his own way.

He reads until late into the night, goes to sleep when his phone finally dies, and wakes up once more to his alarm next morning.

There’s only so far Jason can get in a single day, but he might as well start experimenting. He packs his things and goes for the train station, taking the first train out of state he finds. A few hours later, he takes the next closest train away.

He wakes to the same alarm, in the same motel bed.

There’s some charm to be found in audio-books, too, if you get the right narrator, so he plugs in the rest of “Pride and Prejudice”, hikes to the airport, and takes the first international flight he can hail. Kazakhstan. Sure.

He finishes his book on the flight, at least.

The next loop, he stays in bed after a night full of nightmares.

He takes a boat next, not that it’ll make a difference. He does try something different - tries to stay awake through the night to see what happens, and it should be easy. He was a nocturnal vigilante, and now he’s a nocturnal crime lord. Staying up should be natural.

At some point in the night though, as he lays on the deck gazing at the stars that are invisible from Gotham, his eyelids feel like lead. Between one blink and the next, he’s gone.

When he wakes up once more to the same damn alarm, Jason finally admits defeat.

***

Hurting Replacement never made a difference, no matter his approach, so that one’s off the table, even ignoring the taste of bile he suddenly feels at the thought - and he can examine _that_ problem later. Leaving the country is similarly useless, so Jason’s location makes no difference. He can’t power through by missing the reset moment, either.

Jason admits, in the privacy of his own mind, that it was dumb of him to take it in stride to this extent. At the very least, figuring out the reason for the loop should have happened much earlier. He has no leads, though, nothing to go on other than the events of that very first day, so. Go back to the source, he supposes.

He tries not to become aware of how creepy it is to follow the kid around for a whole day while lurking in the shadows. He fails, but he tries.

He tries staying hidden on the first day, but he gets nothing new other than an awful hurt clawing its way out of his chest as he watches the Replacement fall into place with his team.

He feels too wrung out to even manage bitterness, though. After taking out so much anger on the Replacement, again and again, suddenly, it’s all gone, and all that’s left is the hurt.

The rage which focused him, which gave him a goal and a direction and a target for all of the hurt threatening to tear him apart from the inside, was washed away by days of spilled blood. Jason sees the world without green, and finds it as empty as he’d expected.

Replacement survived the day, he’s sure of it, but the loop didn’t reset. That wasn’t it, then.

***

After spending a loop wandering the city, Jason returns to his room with a bag of burger-and-fries meal in a hand, and a bottle of whisky in the other. He hasn’t checked if his body resets, too, in the morning, or if it’s only his memories that go back, and it’s as good a time as any.

He has a different thought halfway through the night, though.

It’s more like half of one, really, with half the whisky bottle downed and the burger gone, settled heavily in his still churning stomach.

But he eyes his gun, and he thinks.

He’s the only one who remembers the loop. Maybe it’s him it wants. He turns the gun around in his hands, fiddling with the safety.

Would he wake up in the morning, once again to the same alarm?

Or would this finally be the loop that sticks, like his original death should have stuck from the start?

***

In the end, he doesn’t find out.

He doesn’t wake up hungover, though, so that answers the question of his body being reset.

***

Replacement doesn’t initiate physical contact, but he always leans into it like a kitten looking for warmth. It’s something Jason only takes note the third time he spends a loop stalking the kid all day.

Even when Jason was torturing him, a single gentle touch was enough to make the kid come undone, like he hasn’t felt a kind hand his entire life. How is it possible for a kid with a team this touchy-feely, with Dick Grayson for a big brother, to be this touch starved?

It’s barely a half-formed idea at first, but by the end of the day, it grows in weight and intensity, dark and ugly and striking a chord with Jason’s own pain. So he gets out his laptop, and spends another loop researching.

He doesn’t like what he finds.

***

“How in the world did Timothy Jackson Drake end up taking up the suit of a dead boy?”

It’s the one piece that Jason can’t seem to puzzle out. Bruce searching him out as a better, improved version of the kid who failed made sense at first, but there’s more and more holes in that idea, and Jason has no clue what to make of that. His entire plan ran on the assumption that Timothy was simply a replacement, but-

But.

The kid had parents.

Not great ones, granted, and that’s something Jason will be getting around to soon, but he had them. It made no sense for Bruce to pick _this kid specifically_ with such a glaring issue in the way, when there were so many other, better options out there. Options who didn’t have parents to find out and ground them from vigilante activity.

_So Why Timothy?_

He asks as much, because it won’t matter anyway, in another loop. The kid startles and turns on Jason. The frantic searching that he’s grown so used to makes an appearance, too. Jason can’t muster his previous delight at it, though, so he only tilts his head in question, and waits.

“How did you get here?” Timothy shrieks.

Right, this. He sighs. “You guys never bothered to take my codes out of the system. Guess it didn’t matter much when I was dead,” he shrugs. “So? Why you?”

Timothy lowers his defensive stance. Confusion, more than relaxation, drives him, but whatever works in Jason’s favor, he’ll take. The kid looks around, as if searching for some explanation. He looks down at his hands, then, studying them intently for a second. Finally, he looks at Jason again. He finds himself with a surprising amount of patience, recently, so he gives the kid time to parse it out.

“Ok, sure,” the kid mumbles after another second or two. “Why not.”

Jason isn’t sure what the kid thinks is going on, but he supposes “ex vigilante come back to life” wouldn’t be his first guess, either.

“Why, though? Do I need to remember something? Is there something important I’m missing?” Timothy is mumbling to himself, frowning confusedly at the ground, and, _Ah, he thinks it’s a hallucination. That… works out well enough_.

“Fuck, no, whatever. You asked a question - I mean, it was just… someone had to,” the kid shrugs. “Jason… uh, you?” Timothy squints, then shakes his head. “No, I’m talking to my own subconscious, don’t make it weirder. Anyway, Jason left a big hole behind, right? Bruce was losing it, and Gotham was suffering, and Jason wasn’t there anymore, to be what was needed, so. So someone had to fill that hole. But I was the only one who knew their identities, right? Is this what I need to remember?”

The kid trails off, then, but Jason doesn’t - he’s not - he feels like he’s been smacked over the head. He must look gobsmacked, because Timothy takes a glance at him and shakes his head.

“No, that… doesn’t feel right. It’s something else? I can’t be the Robin he was, obviously, or the one Dick was before him. But I’m doing my best to fill his shoes, so… what? Ugh, I hate this. Why can’t my subconscious just tell me what I need to know?”

The kid tries to massage his temples, then, before moving to rubbing the bridge of his nose, but it doesn’t seem to help. It wouldn't, Jason supposes, since he isn't actually a hallucination, regardless of what Timothy thinks.

“I think what you’re going for is that you have your own strengths, kid, and they’re enough.No need to be someone else.”

Fuck.

Jason needs to think.

Timothy snorts, but Jason’s heard enough.

He has - he needs to get away.

He needs air.

***

He stares at the sunset from the top of a building he found. The deep reds of the horizon bleed into soft oranges which melt into soft purples, interspersed by back-lit clouds reflecting all the colors at once. In his ear, a lilting, feminine voice speaks the words to “The Last unicorn”, but Jason isn’t hearing it. There’s white noise scrambling his thoughts out of order, painting over everything with the colors of the sunset. More importantly, none of it is green.

He isn’t sure how long it’s been since he last saw the world without the haze of green coloring everything over into the shade of jealousy and rage. They’re still there, if he looks for them, as much his as they ever were. The hurt stands out more, now, though. The feeling that he’s looking at something beautiful is there, too, along with annoyance at the crowded streets, and homesickness. Jason never realized how many small feelings he’s lost until he suddenly has all of them back and no clue how to handle them all at once.

The last of the sunset’s wisps are fading into a deep, dark blue by now, but the red still lingers - lingers on his clothes and his hands, on the re- on Timothy’s broken body, and the walls of the tower. It lingers on everything Jason’s ever touched.

Turns out, the world after green is red.

***

Timothy might not have had Jason’s troubled childhood, but the more he looks into his parent’s records, the more convinced Jason is that the kid suffered from the worst type of neglect. Parents, never home - plane tickets all over the place, but always only two, never one for timothy. The babysitter payments veer off after he turns six, and only credit card charges and weekly payments for a housekeeper are anywhere to be found.

Suddenly, all the times Jason held the kid’s face in gentle, mocking hands flash before his eyes, and he feels sick.

No, Bruce hadn’t adopted Timothy to replace Jason, he sees that now - but he should have adopted the kid regardless.

***

He’s long since lost count of the days.

He gave up on figuring out the purpose of the loop, too, but he might as well accomplish his own purpose within it.

“You said once that Bruce was losing it,” he tells Tim, when he once more finds the kid alone.

Once again, the kid swivels on the spot to find him. Once again, the kid clocks him as a hallucination. That’s fine, Jason needs to know.

“What are we thinking about?” Tim asks eventually, when he’s done convincing himself. “I don’t think I ever _said_ anything like that.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess you wouldn’t remember that, would you. When I died. You said Bruce was losing it.”

And as if it’s some obvious oversight, Tim just rolls his eyes at Jason. “Of course he was losing it. His kid just died, and the world kept going on as awful as ever. Even normal citizens were terrified of him back then, but the way I saw it…” he sighs. “Why am I going through this again? There’s… Bruce got better. He isn’t suicidal, so why am I rehashing this?”

With that bombshell dropped, Tim shakes his head and leaves Jason behind as if he isn’t feeling his entire world shake in its foundation. The buildings of hatred and pain that he’s built for so long crack apart, as dust and cobwebs come loose off the ruins in his soul. His entire body feels frozen, and for the first time since the pit, there’s no trace of burning deep within him.

***

Jason can’t go back to the motel. Not tonight, not yet. He’ll be back there in the morning, but right now, he just… Needs.

Hopes he’s long since buried come clawing out of the graveyard inside his heart, and Jason can’t handle being alone right now. Titan’s tower is easy enough to navigate, with his access codes intact, and knowing the layouts by heart from his murder prep.

He didn’t expect to find Tim in the den, still working on mission reports, long after the team has gone to sleep.

Right. Obsessive workaholic. Worse than Bruce. He remembers thinking that at some point, now that it’s coming back.

He should leave. He should turn around now, leave the little brat alone in his misery to overwork himself to death. It’s not Jason’s problem.

He could.

He tries.

“Fuck,” he curses, because he can’t. It gets the kid’s attention, of course, but that’s well enough. He needs to turn away from his work. “You, baby bird, are a disaster.” The nickname he only uttered once before comes back to Jason now, as he sees the kid huddled in a nest of blankets and dwarfed in a too big shirt. He cringes, for a second, at the extra baggage it carries, but Tim doesn’t remember that. And it fits, he thinks

Tim groans. “I really didn’t think I was at the hallucinations stage,” he grumbles.

“Yeah, I’m gonna stop you right there. The hallucinations thing was funny at first, but unfortunately for us, I’m completely real, kid.”

If he gives him time to protest, Tim is going to talk circles around Jason, so he doesn’t. He approaches the kid while still talking, and grabs his arm once he’s done, forcing him to put the laptop down or risk breaking it.

“Wha- wait - who - Jason?”

“I already told you, kid. The genuine, original model. Now come on, you can have a crisis once you’ve had more than a half hour of sleep.”

Not that it’s going to matter, when he wakes up in the motel again.

It’s even easier than he’d hoped, actually. Tim only blinks at Jason a few times, before following him with a shake of the head. Looking back, he remembers that Tim would have been sleep deprived already, before his mission, and that he hasn’t slept at all since. It’s not gonna stick, but… but Jason can give the kid a good night’s sleep, barring anything else. Maybe once the loop is broken, he’ll find a way to reveal himself for real, and then…

And then he’ll see. Get the kid to go to therapy, for one.

To Jason’s credit, he only hesitates for a second in Tim’s doorway. When he sits on the bed, his fingers feel clammy, and he can’t shake the feeling of slick, cold blood on his fingertips - it’s not there, not really. Tim it, though, and Tim needs sleep. It’s the one thing Jason _can_ do anything about, so the one he’ll try.

“Come on, baby bird.” The words feel like ash in his mouth, but when he pulls, the kid falls forward without protest.

He lays down next to Jason, with sleep lining his face and desperate hope in his eyes as Jason holds him closer. The arm he wraps around his waist stays gentle, though, a warm weight for the touch-starved kid to snuggle into, not a cage to constrict - not this time. The other hand, he settles into the kid’s hair. It’s still tangled, but Jason takes his time, now. With every tangle he patiently works out, with each gentle caress, he tries to let the memory of pulling and breaking free from beneath his skin.

It doesn’t quite go away, but the present settles like a warm blanket on top, overlaying old, awful sensations with something new. Something kinder.

One arm rubs soft circles on Tim’s back, while the other continues to caress his hair, until eventually, slowly, Tim’s breathing evens out.

Jason follows him into slumber.

***

Jason wakes up with pins and needles in one arm, a fistful of black hair in his mouth, and the smell of unfamiliar shampoo and old takeout. There’s a weight settled against his chest, drooling on his shoulder. The soft snores coming from the kid aren’t being drowned out by any alarms.

It takes Jason an embarrassingly long second to notice as much.

**Author's Note:**

> Fastforward another minute, Jason is freaking out. As soon as Tim wakes up, he's equally freaking out. Alarms are set off, family members are rushed over, and as soon as Jason gets the words "Time Loop" out, every magical check they can is performed.
> 
> They confirm that it's really him, of course. There's tears, and hugs. They're not all from Dick. There's a cuddle pile in Bruce's bed at the manor. Jason forces Tim to go to therapy, but Tim pulls a reverse uno and says "I'm only going if you're also going".
> 
> Jason goes.
> 
> I take "Bad Things Happen Bingo" requests on my [writing Tumblr](https://i-write-midnight-snacks.tumblr.com/), so drop by. You can also just say hi on my [personal Tumblr](https://i-preen-for-oikawa.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
